IN 1969, more than 17,000 children were asked to predict what they thought their lives would be like when they were 25. Here three of them reveal how reality has measured up.

In 1969, over 17,000 children were asked to predict what their lives would be like when they were 25

In the same year that Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon and The Beatles staged their last public performance, 17,000 11-year-olds were asked to write essays at school about what they thought their lives would be like when they reached the grand old age of 25.

Each of them had been born in a single week in March 1958 and the government-funded National Child Development Study (NCDS) has kept track of their lives and medical history every decade since.

The findings have had a significant impact on policy-making and service provision across everything from education and employment to housing and health.

This year, now that all the participants have turned 60, some of the study members have agreed to relinquish their anonymity to reveal how their lives actually panned out versus the hopes and dreams they wrote about as children.

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By the time I was 25 I had long since realised that I wasn't cut out to be a policeman

Steve Christmas

STEVE CHRISTMAS, 60, owns a will-writing business and lives in Eastbourne with his wife, Sue, 57, a PA in the NHS, and their daughter Emma, 24, who works for an airline.

Re-reading my essay now I can see that my dreams of being a police sergeant with a wife and children by the time I was 25 were about me wanting to escape the life I knew as a child. I grew up in Essex where my parents owned a cafe and sweetshop and my verbally abusive, alcoholic father would keep me up working until 1am each night, meaning that I was always tired at school.

They let me eat endless sweets and chocolate so as an 11-year-old I was bullied for being the fat kid. Although I acted like the class clown, deep down I was very unhappy.

A few schoolfriends I've stayed in touch with on Facebook told me recently that they had no idea what was going on with my father so I obviously managed to hide it well.

PH

Steve had a career in insurance

It was a nightmare really and I stayed at home until I was 31 to protect my mother, only leaving to marry Sue, whom I'd met on holiday in Spain when I was 21.

By the time I was 25 I had long since realised that I wasn't cut out to be a policeman and had worked on a farm and as a doorman at a club but then began what turned out to be a great - and long - career in insurance. My first pay packet was £400 a week, which seemed like a fortune compared to what I had been earning up until then.

Sue and I had our daughter, Emma, via IVF and becoming a little family changed me. I had grown up with parents who weren't into giving hugs - my mum would stiffen if I put my arms around her - yet suddenly I couldn't even watch the news without getting emotional.

We have made sure that Emma has got the solid family unit that I never did and the three of us have had some fantastic times together, including holidays to China, Hong Kong, Borneo and Florida.

Although I retired at 50 and took my pension, I then started my own will-writing company, which I love not least because it fits in nicely around my hobbies which include gardening and photography.

So although I didn't end up being the policeman I predicted I would be as a child, I'm very proud that I have certainly built a good life for myself and my family and one that I'm in control of.

PH

Jackie hoped to go into hairdressing as a child

JACKIE ADKINS, 60, lives in West Sussex with her husband Paul, 63, who owns a construction and property renovation company. They have three children - Holly, 34, Lucy, 32, and Joseph, 30, and a six-year-old grandson.

As is very clear in my essay, all I ever wanted to do by the time I was 25 was to be a hairdresser and to this day I regret that I never fulfilled that dream.

I have no idea where my obsession came from but, aged 11, I would spend hours faffing around doing my dolls' hair, my own and other people's.

I was also a Girl Guide and completely mad about David Cassidy and The Osmonds. My dad even took me to Heathrow at three o'clock one morning to catch a glimpse of Cassidy getting off a plane. I can vividly remember the headmaster ushering me into a little room with a boy and telling us to write a few paragraphs about how we imagined our lives would be when we were 25, which seemed terribly ancient to us at the time.

PH

Jackie with daughter Lucy and husband Paul

Sadly, all my plans to train as a hairdresser were shelved when my parents moved from Hertfordshire to Brighton when I was 16 and with money tight they needed me to get a job that paid a decent wage. I ended up working in a bank which I hated and had a tough time settling in a town where I didn't know a soul.

Far from being a hairdresser at 25 and spending weekends shopping as per my essay, I was a wife and mother myself. Paul and I had married when I was 21 and we had had our first baby and bought a home. As the expense of family life took priority, I could never justify spending money on going to college to study hairdressing.

Instead I satisfied my urge by cutting my children's hair - I still snip their fringes - and take joy in the fact that my daughter is a hairdresser.

Two of them still live at home with us because they can't afford to buy houses of their own. But when they eventually leave home I would love to downsize, buy a camper van and travel with Paul around the likes of America and Cuba as well as exploring more of England.

But my one regret will always be not following the dreams of my 11-year-old self to be a hairdresser.

PH

Sally childhood dream was to become a nurse

SALLY SETH-SMITH, 60, is a GP and lives in Hampshire with her second husband Nigel, 65, a retired electronics engineer. They have five children between them, including Sally's three from her first marriage - Alice, 33, Max, 31, and Hector, 27. She also now has two grandchildren.

GROWING UP with three younger brothers I dreamed of being a nurse like my mum and was always pretend-ing that my various dolls and teddies were my patients. It wasn't until I went to secondary school in Cumbria that someone suggested girls could be doctors, just like my dad, and my aspirations shifted.

Aged 11 I was bright and a little precocious - evident from my comments about Russia and world food shortages in my essay - and my nickname was "Mrs Why" because I asked so many questions. But a few days after my 11th birthday my mum killed herself and inevitably it completely changed my childhood. Her death made me feel different to other children my age and it was something I couldn't talk about.

Still, I remained motivated and fulfilled those early aspirations to be a medic. Aged 25 I'd just qualified as a doctor and became pregnant with Alice, my eldest child, so her father, also a doctor, and I brought our wedding forward.

PH

Sally became a GP after wanting to be a nurse

I worked at two hospitals in London before we moved to the South Coast for his job and although I'd wanted to be a paediatric consultant I knew that being a GP would be more conducive to family life.

It's a great career for women and men with children and has also enabled me to get involved in medical and environmental politics and to take on some clinical leadership roles. Two of my children are also doctors, so there's obviously a medical theme in the family.

My first husband and I later divorced and I went on to marry Nigel. I've recently semi-retired but still love my work as a part-time GP and enjoy the opportunity it affords me to also help look after my two grandchildren who are both one.

While you can't have everything you desire in life, I certainly feel as though I've got pretty close. Rereading that little essay I wrote aged 11, I think it's incredible that my beliefs as a child were basically so similar to what I believe now, just not as developed.